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Click here
"Click here" is a verb phrase that may be used as the anchor text of a hyperlink on a web page. The World Wide Web Consortium, through its Quality Tips for Webmasters, advises web designers to avoid using "click here" for this purpose.World Wide Web Consortium QA Tips, contributed Sep 2001 by Aaron Swartz The popularity of the practice varies as the number of sites which are detected using the phrase rises or falls from time to time according to search results. For example, as of February 21 2008, for the top four search engines, Google returns 2.37 billionGoogle search for "click here" on 21 February 2008 returns 2,370,000,000 hits; on June 15 it returned 1,700,000,000, Yahoo returns 3.54 billionYahoo search for "click here" on 21 February 2008 returns 3,540,000,000 hits; on June 15 it returned 4,310,000,000, Live search returns 1.21 billionWindows Live search for "click here" on February 21 2008 returns 1,120,000,000 hits; on June 15 it returned 1,110,000,000 and Ask.com returns 393.5 million Ask.com search for "click here" on 21 February 2008 returns 393,480,000 hits; on June 15 it returned 375,840,000 search results for the phrase. However, a re-try of the searches described above conducted about 4 months later on June 15 2008, returned 1.7 billion for Google, 4.31 billion for Yahoo, 1.11 billion for Live, and 375.8 million for Ask. Jakob Nielsen, a leading web usability pundit, says, "Don't use 'click here' or other non-descriptive link text." Jakob Nielsen's AlertBox: October 3, 2005: Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2005 According to web programmer Jutta Denenger, "If you owned a shop, you'd write 'Welcome' on the door, not 'Open this door to enter the shop.'"What is good hypertext writing?, Appendix: Dangerous Words, Jutta Denenger July 1998 Search indexing Search engines use anchor text to index the content of a linked-to site. For example, a site which is linked with the anchor text "Miserable failure" by many other sites may appear towards the top of searches for "miserable failure".BBC NEWS | Americas | 'Miserable failure' links to Bush Some bloggers have speculated that using "click here" in lieu of a descriptive name is poor search engine optimization practice. Solo Signal, "SEO Tip: Please Don’t Click Here"Frances Thorsten, Realty Blogging, "SEO Tip of the Day -- No More 'Click Here' !!!" Accessibility and device dependence Screen readers, used by the visually impaired, can read out only the hyperlinks on the page as a quick method of navigation. Usability and accessibility firm Webcredible advises to avoid non-descriptive link text such as "click here" at all costs, as it makes no sense whatsoever out of context. Improving usability for screen reader users, OUT-LAW News, 21/07/2005 In addition, mobile phones and other devices without a mouse similarly have no clicking when a link is selected with the keypad. With increasing numbers of touchscreen devices, a related phrase now emerging is "tap here". Users may want to print web pages for reference. "Click here" is inapplicable on the printed page. For this reason, Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web, advises web designers to try to avoid references in the text to online aspects. Style Guide for online hypertext, Tim Berners-Lee 1992-1998. Foreign languages Many languages have similar phrases. For example, the Spanish version is , German: , French: , Danish: , Polish: , Hungarian: , Bulgarian: (shtrakni tuk), Japanese: (koko o kurikku), Hebrew version is (lechats kan), Swedish: . See also * Self-reference * Click-to-call References Category:English phrases Category:Hypertext Category:User interface ja:ここをクリック pl:Kliknij tutaj